ABSTRACT:The attributes and design of soluble polymer supports for catalysis and synthesis are discussed. By manipulating polymer structure, polymer supports can be prepared so that the solubility of an attached reagent, substrate, or ligand is affected by heating, cooling, pH, or solvent identity. Supports with such engineered solubility are useful both in organic synthesis and catalysis. They can be used as purification handles in organic synthesis as a way to recover catalysts, as a way to turn reactions on or off, and more generally, as a handle for separa- Keywords:polymer-supported synthesis; solubility; lower critical-solution temperature; biphasic; catalysis David Bergbreiter was born in 1948 in Chicago, IL. Through college, he was the product of public education, matriculating from high school in the Chicago public schools and receiving a B.S. in Chemistry from Michigan State University in 1970. He received his Ph.D. in 1974 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he worked under the tutelage of Prof. G. Whitesides. At MIT he was exposed to a variety of intellectual experiences in Whitesides' group, working on projects in polymer chemistry, organometallic chemistry, and organic synthesis. Since 1974, he has been a faculty member of Texas A&M University. In Texas, his research has spanned several areas of chemistry including topics like asymmetric synthesis, catalysis, organometallic chemistry, surface chemistry, and physical organic chemistry. After over 26 years, he considers himself an immigrant Texan because he and his wife Lynne own a few acres of land, have a tiny share of an oil well, and have two "native-Texan" daughters, Sarah and Amy.